Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Window on Eurasia: Putin is the Nicholas II of Russia Today, Akhmetov Says

Paul
Goble

Staunton, December 17 – Vladimir Putin’s
efforts to exploit “the energy” of Russian nationalism and Orthodoxy to shore
up his regime strike many as clever and effective, but Rashit Akhmetov points
out that they recall those of Nicholas II and may have the same result,
undermining both the current Kremlin ruler’s position and the territorial
integrity of the country.

That is because, the editor of Kazan’s
“Zvezda Povolzhya” says in the paper’s current issue (no. 46 (12-18 December 2013)),
the current president just like the last tsar not only is alienating many who
had been his most loyal supporters but also is driven by the obscurantism of
these two groups toward the kind of reactionary actions that will repel even
more.

Moreover, Akhmetov
continues, Putin’s strategy is especially dangerous to his position and that of
his country because of the rising tide of popular discontent in the Russian
Federation, a trend that makes it entirely possible that the current “Ukrainian
fashion” will spread to Moscow and other Russian cities within the year.

As many commentators on Putin’s
policies appear to have forgotten, the editor notes, Nicholas II in the
troubled last years of his reign turned ever more to the most reactionary
elements of the Russian Orthodox Church and surrounded himself with mystics
like Rasputin who gave him horrific and and self-destructive advice.

Now, Putin is doing much the same
thing at both the general and specific levels. His support for giving Orthodoxy
Constitutional status does not have the overwhelming support many think,
Akhmetov says, andhis anti-gay campaign
is not only offending rights groups in Russia and the West but costing him
support where he has traditionally had it.

According to Akhmetov, more than
three-quarters of the population is against making Orthodoxy a state ideology:
most of the 20 percent plus who are not ethnic Russians, an additional 30
percent who are products of ethnically mixed marriages and thus more tolerant,
and 30 percent who remain from Soviet times “convinced” atheists.

Moreover,
as Putin appears to have forgotten, ethnic Russians make up only about a third
of the owners of major businesses, the oligarchs on whom he has drawn support
in the past.Neither they nor the three
broader demographic groups are likely to welcome an additional role for the
often obscurantist leadership of the Russian Orthodox hierarchy.

And finally, while it is certainly
true that Russians have a long tradition of wanting to unite on the basis of “truth
and justice,” Akhmetov continues, almost all who care about these things see
them as being part of an individual’s internal landscape rather than being
something blared from loudspeakers on public squares.

But it is Putin’s
anti-gay crusade which is the most obviously self-destructive and the most
comparable to some of the missteps Nicholas II made. Launching this effort in
advance of the Olympics shows, Akhmetov says, that once again Russia as
Chernomyrdin put it “wanted something better but it turned out like always.”

The Olympic movement both in
antiquity and in modern times has many links to homosexuality.In classical Greece, Akhmetov says, it was a
celebration of male beauty; and its modern reviver, Pierre de Coubertin, was a
homosexual. That makes the timing of Putin’s move counterproductive
internationally, as even Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev has suggested.

But it is also dangerous from the
point of view of Putin’s ability to retain the support of many in the Russian
security agencies, Akhmetov argues.The
Cheka to which Putin as a former KGB officer looks back with such nostalgia was
“very blue” not only in terms of those it sought to recruit but also in terms
of its own personnel.

In addition, there were many
homosexuals in the CPSU Central Committee and its apparatus, and there are many
in the State Duma and among the business elites. At least five percent of the
population of Moscow is gay, Akhmetov says, and that share is increasing as
gays flee from other less-open parts of the country.

If indeed five percent of the
population as a whole is homosexual, that can represent a potentially powerful
force that Putin as a result of the influence of the Russian Orthodox Church
and of his own incaution has unnecessarily offended, especially at a time when
members of that stratum can and do maintain ties with the outside world.

The current Russian president may
believe that he can build support by allying with a nebulous conservative
Russian majority against minorities ethnic, religious and sexual. Indeed, if he
reads his own controlled media, he will be certain of it. But offending so many
specific groups when the majority is unhappy as well is not a strategy that
worked all that well for Nicholas II – and, according to the Kazan editor, it won’t
work for Putin either.